


paper or plastic

by patho (ghostsoldier)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn’t lower the shovel. He may be a lot of things (all of them <i>terrible</i>, if you listen to Cecil “Oooooh, I’m so great because I have a <i>radio show</i>” Palmer), but what he’s not is stupid. He says, “Plastic bags, huh?”</p><p>The dog grins with all three of its (his? their?) heads. Three sets of ears flick forward in canine amusement. “Awesome. So you’ve heard of us.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	paper or plastic

**Author's Note:**

> I sincerely doubt the feral dogs actually returned to the dog park, seeing as no dogs are allowed inside.
> 
> Spoilers for Feral Dogs and The Sandstorm.
> 
> (I've updated Cecil's last name, per what we hear in Cassette)

In the end, Steve buries their doubles around the side of the house, near the toolshed where he keeps the lawnmower. Michaela thought they should bury them near her garden -- “For the fertilizer!” she’d said brightly, and Steve’s not sure if he should be proud of her practicality, or deeply worried -- but the two lumps of dirt, one big and one small, would no doubt be the exact sort of eyesore to catch the attention of the Rocky Butte Neighborhood Homeowners’ Association. Backyard graves are, after all, against the CC&Rs. 

The side yard shouldn’t be a problem, though. And if it is…well. He knows _exactly_ who to blame. There’s only one person in town prescient enough to know things he has no business knowing, like where Steve’s burying the corpses of his and his daughter’s doppelgängers.

In spite of his aching back, Steve stabs the shovel into the ground much harder than necessary. Dirt and pebbles clatter against the fence as he flings the shovelful out of the waist-deep hole.

 _Stupid fucking Cecil. Stupid fucking_ town. _Stupid fucking goddamn sandstorm…_

“Hey,” says a gruff voice, faintly accented in a way he doesn’t recognize. “Watch it, bub. That one almost got me.”

Steve whirls and raises the shovel like a baseball bat, ready to wallop whoever or whatever’s speaking. He’s not sure what he was expecting -- it’s been a strange day, and that’s saying a lot when it comes to Night Vale -- but a massive three-headed dog definitely isn’t it. 

Steve doesn’t lower the shovel. He may be a lot of things (all of them _terrible_ , if you listen to Cecil “Oooooh, I’m so great because I have a _radio show_ ” Palmer), but what he’s not is stupid. He says, “Plastic bags, huh?”

The dog grins with all three of its (his? their?) heads. Three sets of ears flick forward in canine amusement. “Awesome. So you’ve heard of us.”

Over his shaggy black shoulder a few other dogs are visible. They range in size from Chihuahua to Great Dane, although none of them quite match their pony-sized leader. One of them, a scruffy, coyote-sized dog that might simply be an actual coyote, noses curiously at Michaela’s vegetable garden. Steve snaps, “Hey, get out of there! Bad dog!” before he can think better of it. It flinches back with flattened ears and a whine.

The three-headed dog snickers. “Quick study,” he says. Steve can’t tell if he’s speaking with one head, or all of them. “I didn't have to tell you the magic words or anything. You Carlsberg?” 

“I’m either him or his double,” Steve says sourly, although he’s pretty goddamn sure he’s himself. “Who wants to know?”

The dog thumps into a sitting position, raises a massive hind leg, and scratches behind the ears of his leftmost head. The bright chevrons on his chest jingle with the movement. “I heard Palmer talking shit about you on the radio,” the dog says. “What’d you do, piss in his Cheerios?”

Steve rolls his eyes and goes back to digging. He’s under no illusions that the dog’s dangerous, since nothing that large and with that many heads and that many long, horrifyingly sharp teeth could be anything _but_ dangerous, but for the time being the animal seems more intent on conversation than ripping his throat out, and he’s got two corpses to bury.

“I wish,” he says. “Cecil and I...don’t exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things.” 

That’s the friendly way of putting it. The less friendly way would involve a lot of alcohol, and maybe a dartboard with a picture of Cecil’s head taped over it.

Three jaws drop in matching doggy grins, three tongues cheerfully lolling. “ _I’d_ piss in his Cheerios,” the dog says.

Steve grunts and heaves another shovelful of dirt from the hole. “I’m sure you would.”

“So, what are you then?” The dog flops down so he’s eye to eye with Steve. The paws hanging over the edge of the hole are easily the size of Steve’s own hands. “Marxist? Commie? Socialist? Libertarian? Anarchist? Lay it on me, big man. Let’s hear your political philosophy.”

“I don’t have a political philosophy,” Steve snaps. Jabs the shovel into the dirt, adds more to the growing pile just outside the hole. He may not have to worry about sunburn, but that’s small mercy in the face of the oppressive heat. His shirt is soaked both with sweat and his doppelgänger’s blood, he smells like a goddamn _slaughterhouse_ , and he was really hoping to get this hole dug before Michaela finished her shower and changed her clothes and came wandering outside to help. His kid’s a trooper, but the doppelgängers are unsettling. He doesn’t have time to debate politics with a three-headed dog.

The dog snorts. “Everyone’s got a political philosophy,” he says. “Besides, weren’t you the one bitching and moaning about the sandstorm being a great big conspiracy?”

“That’s because it _is_. Just because the City Council announced it doesn’t make it less of a conspiracy. If anything, it just means this probably goes deeper than we all think.”

A huff of laughter. “Sounds like you got a philosophy to me, bro.”

Steve snarls. “I--” Jab. “--am--“ Shovel. “--a--“ _Heave._ “--TAXPAYER.” He kicks the side of the hole with a bloody, dust-covered boot. “And I _don’t_ pay taxes so my fucking government can fund fucking sandstorms that spawn fucking doppelgängers that try to murder me! BECAUSE THAT’S _BULLSHIT_.”

In the long silence that follows, Steve becomes aware of several things. First, his daughter is standing at the end of the side yard in a yellow sundress and galoshes, surrounded by the remaining five feral dogs and holding the sawed-off shotgun Steve keeps in the hall closet at the ready. Second, none of the dogs seem to be threatening her at all; three of them are wagging their tails, and the weird little Chihuahua-sized one appears to be sitting on her foot. And third, their huge and three-headed leader is regarding him with an expression of disturbingly frank appreciation.

“You,” the dog announces, “are one hell of an angry, paranoid nut-job. I like that in a person.”

“Uh.” Steve grimaces and presses the heel of his hand to his throbbing lower back. “Thanks. I think.”

“You okay, Dad?” Michaela calls.

“Just peachy, babygirl. Go back inside.”

She doesn’t move. She’s a good kid. Doesn’t listen half as much as she should, but she’s a good kid.

The dog glances back with one of his heads. “That your girl?”

They’d attacked kids before, Steve remembers abruptly. At the bus stop. They’d attacked kids. In a low, even voice, he says, “If you or your little gang of thugs tries _anything_ , I will have you neutered so fast whatever whelps you’d spawned will retroactively disappear.”

When the dog laughs, his entire body shakes. “I’d like to see you try, fat man,” he says, and when Steve bristles and raises the shovel again, he settles back in the dirt and rolls his eyes and says, “Jeez, relax, your kid’s safe. Way I figure, any pup of yours is probably worth keeping around, and besides…she’s got that thing pointed at my favorite head. I can respect that.”

Michaela does, in fact, have the shotgun pointed right at the dog’s middle head. Steve sincerely hopes she’d remember to _warn_ him if she was planning to fire.

He props the shovel against the side of the hole and carefully heaves himself out. It’s not quite as deep as he’d like, but at this point he’s too tired to care. “Not to cut this fun conversation short or anything,” he says, “but it’s been a really weird day and I just want to get these corpses in the ground already so I can go have a beer and hang out with my daughter. Why are you here, exactly?”

“What, you mean I didn’t say?” The dog rolls to his feet and shakes the dust out of his shaggy black fur. His compatriots wander over and flop to the ground around him. Steve wonders vaguely if they all talk too.

“We’re getting sick of dumpster diving,” the dog explains. “We’re _artists_. It’s demoralizing. So anyway, Nader here was listening to the radio and heard Palmer ranting about your hate-on for the government, and I thought, ‘Well, there you go. I hate the government, this guy hates the government, maybe we’d hit it off and be buddies or whatever.’” He cocks his heads; if he didn’t have three of them, Steve thinks, he’d look exactly like a beloved family pet begging for table scraps.

…if the family pet had crimson eyes, was a decorated military veteran, and also the size of a small horse, that is.

“You…want to be friends,” Steve says blankly.

“Something like that,” the dog says. “If you could spot us a twenty every now and then for spray paint, that’d be cool too.”

Fifteen feet away, Michaela lowers the shotgun. The expression slowly dawning on her face is the exact same as when she tried to talk Steve into adopting one of the radioactive mice they'd been keeping as class pets. “Dad--“

“No.”

“But--“

“ _No._ ”

“But I’ll take them on walks and feed them and clean up after them and--“

“Michaela, we’re not adopting six feral dogs.”

“Uh, excuse you,” the dog says. “We’re not feral. We’re _street artists._ ”

“See, Dad?” Michaela says. “They’re not even feral!”

“If it makes you feel better,” the dog says, “we won’t even attack anyone. We’re in this to antagonize the government and bring down the Night Vale bourgeoisie, and also the people here taste gamey as fuck. I don’t want that shit in my mouth, ugh.”

“Hey, watch the language,” Steve says automatically.

“Sorry, big guy.” The dog thumps his tail and noses at Steve’s hand in apology. “My bad.”

Steve considers the situation. He’s got two dead bodies that still need burying, a pack of apparently-not-feral canine street artists hanging out in his backyard, a daughter who wants to adopt every single one of them--

\--and he’s so exhausted he can barely see straight. 

Steve really doesn’t want to deal with this anymore.

“You’re all sleeping in the garage until I can figure something else out,” he says finally. His next words are almost drowned out by Michaela’s delighted whooping and the gleeful barks of the gang. “And no graffiti in this neighborhood, all right? I don’t want to give the Homeowners’ Association any more ammunition than they already have.”

“I was thinking we could hit the radio station next,” says the three-headed dog, and winks.

“On second thought,” Steve says, “maybe it’s fine if you guys sleep in the house.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] paper or plastic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/942403) by [einzwitterion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/einzwitterion/pseuds/einzwitterion)




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